


Not Your Stepping Stone

by Hokuto



Category: Weiss Kreuz
Genre: Amnesia, Backstory, Drugs, Drunkenness, Dubious Consent, Minor Violence, Multi, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Schwarz came to be Schwarz.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bad Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Updated with extreme randomness, dependent on the amount of ABBA currently stuck in author's head. Title to be updated when I can think of one that's not plain silly.

He was twelve years old, and that was all he knew about himself and he only knew it because they'd told him. "Poor thing's mind just snapped with the shock," one orderly whispered to another, "can't remember a thing," but all of her thoughts were lies and he couldn't pick out anything that she really meant.

After a while he wasn't screaming in pain anymore and enough of the drugs wore off that he could think coherently, and they told him other things - about family, about abuse, about accidents and broken ribs and how twelve-year-old boys ended up in stainless-steel cells hooked up to IVs and surrounded by strangers - but their minds were all lies, too, so rotten with deceit he didn't know how they could think without throwing up; none of them could even tell him the same story twice, so he didn't believe any of them. But they did all seem to think that he had done something wrong, whether they said it out loud or not, and when one of the false-nice nurses (_chocolate-house witch_, he thought, but he didn't remember who had told him stories about witches) asked him for the thousandth time, "Have you remembered anything, dear?" he said, "Bin schuldig, Entschuldigung, bekenne mich schuldig" - _I'm guilty, I did it, I'm done, let me out of here already..._

Either German was about her fifth language or she wasn't listening, or maybe both; brightly as a broken mirror in the sun she said, "What a nice name, Schuldig! I'll just write it down here on your chart for you..."

He didn't bother correcting her. If every damn liar in this place was so sure he was guilty, then Guilty he'd be. Better than nasty endearments or "hey, you" all the time, and really, he couldn't be innocent, could he? Nobody kept innocent kids in a windowless cell and put them through endless weird tests and never let them go anywhere or see anyone but chocolate-house nurses and psychiatrists with big cigars.

Eventually they let him out and said he could go anywhere he liked, but he didn't have anywhere; he sat outside the door of his cell in white hospital pajamas, and when a woman in black walked by he tripped her and said, "Hey, let me have a cigarette."

She looked him over. "You're the new kid, Schuldig, right?"

"I guess."

"Fuck you." She kicked his foot out of her way and walked on.

It was the first honest thing he'd heard in weeks; he decided not to get used to it.

* * *

They didn't order him around at first. They'd just tell him things like where someone's office was, or how to get to the cafeteria, or who was in charge of medical supplies - little getting-to-know-the-place facts - and after a while there was nothing strange about people asking him to go and get them some fries, or ask Dr. Firat for a file, or see if Herr Schabel was in a good mood...

When he was older Schuldig could laugh remembering it, how transparent they were, but at twelve and a bit he was just glad to be good for something besides sitting in dark rooms with people who asked him to tell them what they were thinking or guess what card they were going to draw next. If he'd been younger he might have made friends, if older he would have looked for allies; stuck somewhere in the middle, he just knew people, and they knew him. And once they had him used to doing little favors, the rest was just a few steps further.

"Schuldig, we'd like you to try these," Dr. Hiyoshimaru said, holding out a little white cup with two round red pills. "We think they'll help to control your little issues," which was what the doctors said when they meant what everyone else called _oh God I can see my brain on your face get out of my head get_ out_._

Schuldig took the cup and shook it, watching the pills roll around inside. "You think?"

"Well, that's what they're designed to do, but we won't know until we try, will we?" Dr. Hiyoshimaru said, although Schuldig knew that the doctor only ever prescribed himself plain herbal remedies because he knew what went into everything else. "Be a good boy and take them, then go see Dr. Bremer, she has something she wants you to do."

Dr. Bremer was in the lab she shared with Firat, Hiyoshimaru, and Anouilh, and muttering under her breath while she messed about with her sample slides; "I told you to get out and _stay_ out, Park," she snapped, then looked up. "Oh, it's you - got my message, then?"

"Yeah," he said, watching her rearrange the slides with quick, angry precision. "What's up?"

"I need you to go up to the dorm level and find a girl a named Giselle," as the glass slides clicked into place, one after another, "you know where it is, right?"

"Sure," he said, though he didn't go up there very often - it was all older teenagers and twentysomethings that lived on that floor, and they worried him more than most of the shrinks and doctors. "What, do you need her help or something?" Jealousy gnawed at the edge of his mind, his own for once; _he_ was the go-to kid, not any of them...

"What - oh Mary Mother of God, no," Bremer said. "She's got two left thumbs and a randomly activating magnetic field, I've had her banned from the labs - no, the boy in the room next to her told us she was going to sneak out to a party tonight, we want you to go with her and make sure nothing happens. Can you do it?"

"Oh, yeah, no problem," said Schuldig, slouching against the doorframe in relief. "Sounds like fun."

"Good, good." She slid the last slide into the box and shoved the box into a drawer under the table, then took the chopsticks out of her bun to let her hair down. "She's in room 509, between Crawford and Lisi... Have you taken Hiyoshimaru's pills yet?"

He held up the paper cup and rattled them around.

"Just be sure to take them before you leave," she said, "we don't want you coming back with a dozen other people in that silly red head of yours. Oh, and go see Kaplan about getting some clothes, you can't go outside looking like a mental patient."

"Sure, sure."

Schuldig wasn't sure that the outfit Herr Kaplan dumped on him didn't make him look more mental than the hospital clothes, but for all he could remember sleeveless shirts and tight pants in weird colors could be fashionable outside; he just doubted it. He went up to the dorm floor anyway, feeling like a fool, and knocked on the door of 509.

A girl with dark blonde hair and black roots opened the door, glaring at him. "What do you want, shrimp?"

He edged himself into the doorway so she couldn't shut him out and said, "Well, I heard you were heading for a party tonight..."

She grabbed him and dragged him inside, slamming the door behind him, and demanded, "Who told you that?"

He tapped the side of his head and grinned up at her - damn, she was tall! But pretty, in a snotty French sort of way... "Oh, just picked it up out of thin air - want a bit of company?"

She snorted. "You think I'd want to be seen with a little boy like you at a real party?"

"Why not?" he said, still grinning, following the flow of her mind. "Afraid everyone will think I'm cuter than you?"

Giselle snorted again, but there was a little laughter behind it this time; she held up a hand and a pair of earrings shot from a dresser by the bed to land in her palm. "Not a chance! They'll laugh you out of the club."

"Oh? Want to bet on it?"

"You're on, little boy," she said, laughing for real. "If you think you can handle it."

"Great," he said. "Pick you up at seven?"

"It's already past seven, stupid." She reached around him and opened the door again, and nudged him towards the hall. "Come back at ten, don't let anyone see you - and be ready for some real fun."

Schuldig went off with his hands in his pockets, preparing to whistle a song he didn't know, and then glanced through the open door of the room next to Giselle's and saw a guy in glasses staring at him.

He cut off before he could whistle a note and said, "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing," said the other guy - not as old as most of the doctors, but definitely older than Schuldig - and smirked. "Have a good time outside."

"Whatever, asshole."

He headed back downstairs to look for food, and swallowed the red pills on the way, just to be on the safe side.

* * *

Schuldig woke up the next morning alone in Giselle's bed, pantsless and covered up with an unfamiliar dark green coat, and realized he couldn't remember anything but the beat of a song from the party running around his head, _takeachance takeachance takeachance_.

He could feel Giselle in the bathroom down the hall, showering and crying, but her mind was so clouded and bitter that he couldn't figure out anything of what had happened. It was probably his fault, though. Things were, when you were Schuldig and wore your fault on your face and in your name.

He worked out a way to wrap the coat around his waist so nothing important was showing and peeked out of the door; he didn't see anybody in the hall, so edged his way outside and tried to stroll nonchalantly towards the stairs as if he always walked around without any pants on, even if walking felt kind of funny this morning.

But he just had to look and see if the door next to Giselle's was open again, and there was the four-eyes, staring and smirking at him, and Schuldig said, "What is your _problem_, asshole?"

"Nothing," the guy said. "Did you have a good time?"

"You tell me," Schuldig snapped, Giselle's tears dripping on his brain and stinging like alcohol on a scraped knee. "No, wait, don't. Shut up and die."

They had never officially kicked him out of his hospital cell, even if he usually ended up sleeping on office couches instead, and he used it to change back into the white pajamas. He kept the green coat draped over his shoulders, though, as he told Dr. Hiyoshimaru that he didn't think the pills had done any good.

"Really?" Hiyoshimaru said mildly. "And we were so sure - ah, well, we'll tweak the formula and try again. In the meantime, I believe Dr. Anouilh and Ms. Park wanted to talk with you, they're in Anouilh's office..."

But they didn't really want to talk at all; they just had another little cup, another pair of little pills (greenish-yellow, this time, and six-sided instead of round). Schuldig took them, and spent the rest of the day in Dr. Bremer's office hiding under her desk.

"Poor mite," she said when she found him there in the evening, and crouched down, reaching out to pat him on the head. He flinched from her, from the sharp edges of her thoughts leaking out through her fingers, and hit his head on the underside of the desk.

Bremer sighed and pulled him out and up on his feet. "Anouilh's pills, right? Idiot. How was the party?"

"Weiss nicht," he muttered, shutting his eyes against the fluorescent lights, "don't know - can't remember."

"Probably good, then," she said, dismissing Giselle crying in the shower and the too-big stranger's coat. "Oh, stop flinching, brat. Here, sit with me a while, the rest ought to wear off soon... Mah, drug trials are rough but you'll get used to them soon enough, they're for your own good."

Schuldig sat with her a while, but even her nicest thoughts hurt.

* * *

He saw Giselle around a couple of times after that; the first time she ran away, and the second time she kissed him on the forehead and said, "You're a sweet kid, don't worry about it, it's not your fault."

When he went up to ask her just what the hell "it" had been, anyway, and how could she be sure that it wasn't his fault, her room was empty and the jerk next door told him she'd been sent out to the Eszett post in Canada.

"Eszett?" Schuldig said. "That's the name of this place, Eszett? Like the letter?"

"Yes," the jerk said.

"That's a dumbass name."

"Tell me about it," said Crawford.


	2. Secrets and Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has some extra violence in.

As if learning the name had broken a spell, Eszett kicked Schuldig out of the hospital cell for good, stuck him in a room on the dorm floor - not next to the asshole with glasses, at least - and instead of letting him hang around the doctors all hours of the day and night, they started sending him to classes, if you could call irregular sessions of getting lectured about all kinds of weird spy stuff classes, anyway.

"What do you mean, spy stuff?" Dr. Bremer asked, sliding a tray of test tubes into the autoclave. "What does a brat like you even know about spies?"

"Um - languages, lock-picking, code-breaking - things like that," Schuldig said vaguely. He didn't actually pay attention in the classes; it was much easier to pick the answers out of the teacher's brain. They hated that, but he thought it was the more useful skill, himself. ("What if you're in a situation where the messenger doesn't know the cipher for what they're carrying?" the code-breaking teacher had demanded. "Then I'd find out who did from their mind and go find that guy, seriously, are you stupid?")

Learning to shoot guns was fun, though, and the lockpicking, though he wasn't too good at it. Everything else he tuned out.

Dr. Bremer snorted. "Spy stuff indeed," she said, and went to the sink to deal with the equipment that didn't need sterilizing. "This is a research facility, not MI6."

Schuldig spun around on one of the lab stools and asked, "What kind of research?"

"What? Speak up, I can't hear you over the water -"

"I said, WHAT KIND OF RESEARCH?"

"Not that loud, damn brat - all kinds of research." She turned the faucet off. "If you're not going to help me clean up, get out."

He helped her wash the dishes, but only because he didn't feel like going to the Chinese lecture.

Outside of the classes, Schuldig found that he was not only Eszett's favorite new guinea pig for drug trials, but their party boy, too. His "standing orders," as Dr. Anouilh had put it with a smirk, were to accompany any of the girls whenever Eszett sent them out on social missions (or whenever they were sneaking out; no one seemed interested in stopping them, and they had a rotation of expeditions to the local disco almost every night).

There were plenty of kids who would have hated such an assignment; Schuldig thought he was as close to heaven as he was ever going to get. Not all of the girls liked him, but all the ones who wanted to go party did, and they were infinitely nicer than most of the doctors, who usually didn't have time for him anymore anyway unless they had pills to shove down his throat.

"My life would be so much less without you," he said to Latoya one afternoon while she painted her nails in stripes and he lay sprawled on her bed being absolutely useless while "Purple Rain" played on her radio.

"Oh, you go on," she said, but she sounded pleased. "You gonna be such a bad boy when you grow up..."

"It's only to please y'all," he said confidently, then banged his head into her pillow. "Damn, girl, your voice is _contagious_."

Latoya just grinned. "Suck it up, human sponge. You goin' out tonight or gonna stay in and actually do some homework?"

"Out," Schuldig said. "Yao Ziyi and Yumie have put aside their mutual enmity for one night to go to an ABBA concert, I can't refuse when they both ask so nicely - plus, orders."

"Orders," Latoya said with a snort. "Pah. Damnedest orders I ever heard of. You'd be better off stayin' in and studyin' something useful, like chemistry - I could tutor you to catch you up..."

"I am already an expert in chemistry," he informed her. "Well - one kind of chemistry, anyway."

"That kind ain't gonna get you anywhere but in trouble," she said.

He rolled over on his back and stared up at the ceiling. Above the dorm level was another floor of labs and offices (mostly doctors Schuldig didn't know except by sight), then the floor with the cafeteria, and above that... "Then why does Eszett keep setting me up? I ain't - I'm not complaining because I like you all, but it's weird..."

"Don't look at me," said Latoya. "I'm just here for the labs."

Schuldig was supposed to meet Yumie and Ziyi at six so they could get to the concert in plenty of time, but at 5:53 he was lurking at the door of Dr. Bremer's office instead. She came back from the lab with an armful of notes and files and raised her eyebrows at him, but only said, "Hold the door for me, brat."

He did, and after she'd set the papers down on her desk she said, "What are you doing back down here? Thought they were keeping you busy upstairs."

"Nothing," Schuldig said, and moved some textbooks off of the only other chair in the room so he could flop on it. "Just bored. And I'm going to be out all night, so..."

"They certainly are keeping you busy," Bremer said dryly. She sorted through a mug full of pens, picked one, and began marking the corners of the notes with dates and numbers. "Enjoying yourself, I hope?"

"Pretty much," he said. He still didn't know what had gone on at that first party, but he was always careful about anything people handed him now and he hardly drank at all, and saved the doctors' pills for later. He wasn't missing much of the party experience; he could get a buzz just from the taste of everyone else's minds while they were stoned or drunk off their asses. "Hey, doc - do you think it's weird here? The classes and stuff we go to?"

"Are you on about that spy training again?"

"That and everything else," Schuldig said. "I mean, with going out with girls all the time, and stuff. Isn't it weird? Like they're training me to be a super love spy, or something."

Dr. Bremer's mind went a funny flavor then and her face locked up, but she kept numbering her notes and said, "Why on earth do you think Eszett would be training a scrawny little kid like you to be a - a 'super love spy'?"

"I'm not a kid," he said, irritated. "I'm probably almost thirteen, and I've already slept with five girls, sort of six..." He still didn't know how Giselle counted and there had been that one time with Anouilh in his office, but Anouilh was a guy so Schuldig wasn't sure where that one fell, either. "Anyway, I have lots of experience now, that definitely makes me a grown-up."

"Just - get out of my office, brat."

He got out and headed upstairs to the cafeteria to meet his dates, but he still caught a bit of Bremer's thoughts floating up and frowned at the bitter taste. She didn't have any call to go thinking of him as a poor _ato_, either, whatever that meant; she was the one who'd thought he was so good at parties and clubs in the first place...

He passed Crawford on the stairs coming down; the jerk said, "See you tomorrow, Schuldig."

"Hope I don't," Schuldig said, and went on his merry way.

* * *

"- and along with the special operatives, you'll be teaming up with Lifsdottir and Crawford."

"Oh," said Schuldig, the captain's words slowly filtering through a thick haze of concert aftermath. "That's - great?" No, wait, no it wasn't, he hated that guy...

The captain sighed. "Just get some coffee or amphetamines or something before you're deployed out," he said, "Eszett doesn't need any space cases on duty."

"Yes, _sir_," Schuldig said, and tossed off an exaggerated American salute. "You got it. No space casing on duty."

He left the captain's office, thinking only of coffee, and stupid Crawford was already outside in the hall, waiting with Lisi. "I told you I'd see you tomorrow," Crawford said, leaning against the wall and smirking.

"What, so that's your special power? Knowing how to piss me off?"

"Precognition," said Crawford.

Schuldig turned around to go back through the door. "That does it, I'm not going on any missions with an asshole like -"

"Now, now, Brad, let's behave," Lisi said. She wasn't a party girl so Schuldig didn't know her very well, but he remembered vaguely that she had a sort of mindreading thing, too - more emotion-focused than specific thoughts, or something. "I would hate for this mission to turn - complicated."

"Complicated? Complicated how?" Schuldig said. "We're just going out to haul in some scientist or something, right? We spot, operatives grab - nothing complicated there. What could go wrong?"

Lisi and Crawford sighed in unison.

* * *

A bullet pinged off the brick right over Schuldig's head and Crawford grabbed him by the collar, hauled him into an alley and shoved him behind a dumpster. More bullets ricocheted outside the alley's mouth and Crawford reached around the dumpster and shot back wildly, then drew back as one of the Eszett operatives came barreling down the road and and another shot took the operative in the back of the head.

"What the hell what the hell what the hell!"

"Schuldig, I'd like to introduce you to my friend Murphy and his law," Crawford said, reloading the pistol he had grabbed from someone right before everything had gone up in flames.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Schuldig couldn't breathe and his head was sparking off like a box of dynamite with everyone else's adrenaline and he thought his heart might actually be beating so hard it would explode.

"Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong," said Crawford. "You should remember that law, Schuldig, I feel that it's going to be an important part of your future."

"Shut up! This isn't my fault, I didn't -" More footsteps, and they both held their breath as someone in a Swiss army uniform ran past the alleyway.

When that person was gone Schuldig started to crawl out, towards the fallen operative, and Crawford pulled him back. "Shit! Just let me -"

"What do you think you're doing, stupid," Crawford hissed, "if there are any other hostiles out there you'll be dead before you can blink!"

"But it's Herr Bremer -" That was his fault, he knew it, Dr. Bremer had asked her husband to go along on the mission to keep an eye on him and now he was lying in the middle of a road and his head was all over and it was Schuldig's fault and -just let me go, maybe I can bring him back I should bring him back for her let me go!-

"No," said Crawford, and he slapped the pistol into Schuldig's hand. "Watch this end, if anyone after us comes back this way shoot them. I'm going to see where the alley goes."

"I can't," Schuldig said, "I can't do this - and Herr Bremer and Lisi - you don't know where Lisi is!"

"Lisi can take care of herself," Crawford said. "For your own sake, I hope you can, too." And he disappeared down the twisting alley.

That left the pistol, Schuldig, and Herr Bremer (where the fuck was everyone? Schuldig couldn't taste anyone close, besides Crawford's iron mind and the fading traces of the Swiss soldier - but no police, no bystanders, no one who'd been woken up by the gunfire). Schuldig wasn't expecting much from Herr Bremer at the moment, but he wasn't sure how much he could expect from himself, either.

He checked the pistol - safety off, loaded, ready to fire - and for all that he'd been shooting guns almost every day lately his hands were shaking. Shit! Damnit! Maybe if he'd paid attention in some of those other classes he would have heard them mention something about _not dying_...

Two new minds pinged off his radar - sharp, focused, and unfamiliar, not any of the remaining Eszett operatives - and Schuldig scrunched himself more deeply into the dumpster's cover, trying not to breathe. Damnit his heart was going a hundred miles a minute again and he could feel the battle-edge from the new brains melting into _his_ brain, not good not good not good - "Check that alley, I'll catch up with Petrovich," a voice said, bad worse worst, and before he could think too hard he grabbed onto all the adrenaline from the two soldiers that he could and jumped up and fired, two shots at one target and then he dropped and rolled and saw one body fall across Herr Bremer's and the second soldier hitting the ground and firing into the alley but Schuldig was already (sort of) safe behind the dumpster again.

Which was great and all, except that now someone knew he was back there and once they got over their nerves they'd just come in, get him, and wait to pick off Crawford if the jerk's precog didn't alert him in time, so really, not that great.

He had to do something before Crawford came back. Couldn't just jump up again, the soldier knew he was there and would blow his head off before he could shoot... Schuldig reached out and started riffling through the soldier's mind, desperate to find something, anything to use: hyperactive senses, rising anger, echoes of old orders, echoes of current orders - kill the boy with glasses, kill the redhead, memory of a redheaded boy named Toris, kill the blonde girl - training in the mountains, training in a fake city, memory of a redheaded boy named Toris - wait, a redhead?

Schuldig could work with that. He grabbed on to the memory hard and pulled it to the front of the soldier's head, heard the soldier stumble towards the alley and stood up and said "Hey, missed me?" and when the soldier took a step back Schuldig brought the pistol up and fired again, twice, always shoot twice was what the instructor said and the soldier dropped and it was only then that Schuldig saw the swell of breasts under the uniform.

"So you can take care of yourself after all," Crawford said behind him, and Schuldig jumped a mile. "Good. That seems to be the last of them. The alley lets out -"

"Fuck _off_," Schuldig said, and he threw the pistol back at Crawford. "I didn't mean to - she was a woman -"

"She was a soldier," said Crawford practically, "and if you hadn't shot her first she would have blown your head off. Come on; this street lets out not far from the rendezvous point."

* * *

Lisi was already there at the café, waiting in a booth with a good view of the door, with the one remaining Eszett special ops guy (shot in the shoulder and grey in the face, but alive - Lisi had bandaged him up with her coat) and the scientist they'd been supposed to pick up in the first place, who was taking a nap slumped over the table. Crawford ordered decaf coffee and smoked; Lisi asked for a ridiculous number of pastries and tried to make Schuldig eat, but he wasn't all that fond of sweet stuff and thought he'd be sick if he ate anything.

They waited for two hours, drinking coffee, jumping at every loud noise and new customer, smoking, eating, occasionally giving Dr. Mbuntu's mind a little twist to keep him asleep, exchanging significant looks, but the truck that was supposed to pick them up didn't show. Finally Lisi hot-wired a delivery truck parked behind the cafe; as they loaded the sleeping scientist and the wounded operative into the back, Lisi looked over at Crawford and said, "Next time we're on a grab mission, you're in charge."

"Wait, he wasn't in charge this time?"

"Don't make sexist assumptions, Schuldig," said Lisi, "it isn't attractive." Then she ruffled his hair like he was six and told him to sit up front with Crawford to keep an eye out for trouble.

Schuldig would much rather have stayed in the back with Lisi and tried to sleep, but Lisi was the leader, so he climbed up into the front seat and settled in for a silent ride.

He wished. They hadn't been on the road back to the Alps for ten minutes when Crawford said, "I'm sure you know what I've been thinking -"

"I try not to," Schuldig said, though actually it didn't take any work not to hear Crawford; there was something oddly fluid and shifting about Crawford's mind that made it hard to get into without trying. Maybe it was the precog thing. He started poking at the truck's radio to see if he could find any ABBA on the air.

Crawford ignored him and said, "But I know what you've been thinking, too."

Schuldig winced at a burst of static, twisted the dial again, and was rewarded with the sweet strains of "Mamma Mia." "That I want you to shut up?"

"You've been thinking that the world outside is like the parties you go to," said Crawford. "All fun and games and pretty girls falling all over you, and no one has to know that you're a little - different. Of course, at Eszett being different doesn't matter, but then you're stuck with Eszett and that's no fun for a boy like you. You've been thinking that if you could get out without Eszett coming after you, the world could be your oyster..."

"Not really," Schuldig said, hunching down in the seat (damned truck was freezing, or maybe it was just tiredness and the aftermath of nerves). Usually he thought that he'd take at least one of the girls with him when he escaped, and they would set up in Berlin or Los Angeles or somewhere else glamorous and he would be a private eye with a great hat and lots of dangerously beautiful women asking him for help, like in the books Firat hid in his desk.

"Well, now you know better," Crawford said - did the guy _ever_ listen? "There are people out there who will kill you without thinking twice about it, just for what you are. There are people who'd kill you just for knowing the name Eszett and don't care how you know it. And there are people who don't even need to know about you or about Eszett - the world eats kids like you without even noticing. Eszett - they'll keep you safe, as long as you're with them or while you're out working for them, but not because they give a damn about you. You're useful, so they'll use you, and when you're not useful..." He took a left turn, too fast, and the truck teetered precariously on its wheels until Crawford wrestled it back into balance, swearing under his breath.

Schuldig thought about some of the significant glances Lisi and Crawford had been shooting back and forth at the café, and said, "You weren't expecting them to pick us up, were you? You guys knew they weren't going to come..."

"Hope springs eternal," Crawford said, a little bitterness leaking out even through his fluid mind, and he turned right with a little more care. "Sometimes they will pick you back up at the rendezvous, if you succeed... If you fail but get back to base without bringing trouble with you, that's okay, but they aren't going to stick out their necks for any of us."

"Great," Schuldig said. "Really, that's great." And he sunk a little further into the seat.

He would have loved to argue with Crawford, prove him wrong, just to take the bastard down a few pegs, but he was guilty, not stupid. He paid attention to people around Eszett, he knew what went on: Dr. Bremer calling him a _poor mite_ while she designed drugs to keep him under control, Anouilh's touches, the faint surprise in Hiyoshimaru's thoughts whenever he saw Schuldig around (_still alive, are you?_), the monster-words floating in Kim Eun Park's mind that she would never come out and say, Firat's clinical dismissiveness. Oh, they were a real bunch of charmers in Eszett, and Schuldig was stuck with them, unless Crawford had some better plan... "So what?" he said, exactly as harshly as he had meant. "So they're jerks, big news. Why are you even talking to me about this crap? Trying to look cool in front of the new kid? Because you've totally picked the wrong new kid -"

Crawford tsked and took one hand off the wheel to rummage around in the backpack he'd brought along as camouflage (pretty poor camouflage, since it was a tacky American backpack), and threw something big and green at Schuldig.

Schuldig caught it and realized it was his favorite too-big jacket. "The hell - I left this in my room! What the hell are you doing with it?"

Crawford sighed and swerved the truck back to the proper side of the road. "I can see the future, idiot, I knew you'd need it. And for the record, I don't need to try to look cool, especially not for you. But you're tougher than you look -"

"Wow, _thanks_." Schuldig wrapped the jacket around himself and burrowed into it anyway.

"- not much tougher, though - and I have - well, I have a feeling about you. About us."

Schuldig turned and stared at Crawford. "A feeling? Really? Your 'feelings' do realize that my 'feelings' involve hating you, right?"

"Will you shut up for one minute?" Crawford snapped, which was rich coming from the guy who hadn't stopped talking for more than thirty seconds straight so far. "Call it a hunch, or whatever you want. But what I've said about Eszett is true and you know it, and I know that we both need someone to watch our backs, because no one else is going to. And it's not just the hunch I have about you - Eszett didn't team us up to torment you, between a telepath and a precog there's not much that could get by us if we worked together properly. We could go a long way together..." He paused, probably for dramatic emphasis because he was exactly the sort of person who would do that, in Schuldig's considered opinion, and then said, "A long way from Eszett, even."

"What makes you think I give a damn about your back?" said Schuldig. "I can look out for myself fine, I have so far."

"I know how you got that coat," Crawford said. "Do you?"

"That's fucking low, Crawford." Schuldig scrunched down further on the seat and buried himself more deeply in the coat, who cared where he'd gotten it as long as he had it, right? It had only been the one time and he was more careful now...

He didn't even think about asking Crawford. Not knowing was better than hearing what had happened from him.

Crawford sighed again and drove through a stop sign. "If you're not interested, you're not interested," he said, "but let me tell you one thing that's certain - no one else at Eszett is ever going to make an offer like this to you and mean it."

Schuldig put his feet on the dashboard and stared out of the windshield, and then said, "Haven't heard you make an actual offer yet, to be honest."

"Oh," said Crawford.

"Just a lot of raving about the evils of Eszett and the world. Which I can't really disagree with, even if I do hate your face."

"I see."

"So what's in it for you, Herr Crawford?" Schuldig asked. "What exactly do you think you're going to get out of whatever deal you want to make?"

Crawford looked at the road for probably the first time since he'd gotten behind the wheel, and said thoughtfully, "I want to destroy Eszett from the inside."

"Wait, what?"

"Do you know what Eszett's overall purpose is?" Crawford said.

"Umm..." Schuldig tried to remember some of the things he hadn't been supposed to hear. "Taking over the world. I think. 'S what most secret organizations are for, right?"

"Something along those lines, yes."

"So what, you want to let them do it and then stab them in the back and rule it yourself? Not a bad idea, if a little unoriginal..."

"No," said Crawford, and smiled. "I want to kill them after they've done it and then let the world burn."

Schuldig stared at him for a minute, and then he leaned back and started to grin. "You're a more interesting guy than I thought, mein Herr..."

"Is that a yes?"

"Well," said Schuldig, "I can't let an interesting guy like you die before you carry out any of your interesting ideas, can I?"

He was going to regret this, but at least for the rest of this trip, he didn't care. Schuldig rested his head against the window and fell asleep.


End file.
